Florida: Use of False Documents to Obtain Employment is Alone Sufficient to Constitute Violation of Workers’ Comp Fraud Statute; No Comp Claim Need be Filed

A Florida appellate court held that a trial court had improperly dismissed a charge under § 440.105(4)(b), Fla. Stat., where the State showed that the defendant had used someone else’s social security card and identity to secure employment, but had offered no evidence that the defendant had filed a workers’ compensation claim or intended to do so.  The appellate court held that under the plain wording of the statue, defendant could be in violation of the statutory provision if he presented false or fraudulent documents for the purpose of obtaining employment or if he provided the false and fraudulent documents to file or support a workers' compensation claim.  The appellate court rejected defendant's argument that merely presenting false documents to gain employment, without more, did not trigger a violation of the statute.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is a leading commentator and expert on the law of workers’ compensation.

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance. Bracketed citations link to lexis.com.

See State v. Brock, 2014 Fla. App. LEXIS 6220 (Apr. 30, 2014) [2014 Fla. App. LEXIS 6220 (Apr. 30, 2014)]

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 39.03 [39.03]

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law.

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